Global Village celebrates 15th anniversary

By Kaveri Gyanendra

The steady beat of the music, the smell of delicious food and the students' laughter wafted around campus at the bend of Market Street and The Alameda last Sunday at the annual Global Village street fair.

Global Village, hosted by the Multicultural Center, aims to exhibit and share the various cultures that are represented around campus as well as raise money for Arrowhead Regional Computing Consortium, which helps K-12 schools. About 30 vendors, including both off and on campus organizations, lined the streets offering a variety of products. Although it is not a requirement, the vendors were suggested to donate a portion of their profits to ARCC via MCC.

"It is encouraged for them to donate, but it is ultimately their individual decision to make a contribution or not," Vendor Committee Chair Anisha Sampat said. "Some vendors agreed to donate around 15 percent of their profits while some gave us a flat rate for the entire day. In addition, they all pay a $65 flat fee."

Some clubs sold food or merchandise as a way to raise the money as well as share certain aspects of their culture with the students and members of the Santa Clara community.

A variety of foreign music blasted through the speakers as clubs such as Barkada, Intandesh and Vietnamese Student Association performed dances that reflected their native culture.

MCC sold "stereotype this" shirts in addition to water bottles and MCC cookbooks while UME offered to write people's names in Arabic for $1. The Hawaiian club, Ka Mana'o O Hawai'i, performed their traditional dance, Auana, and sold spam nusudi for $1.

In addition to the four performances per hour throughout the day, well known DJ Check-O spun records to keep the energetic momentum of the fair running.

Various clubs also set up their own speakers and played music that promoted the culture their club represents.

Sunday's events helped commemorate the 25th anniversary of the MCC and the 15th anniversary of Global Village; the MCC aimed to celebrate the culture represented at Santa Clara.

"We wanted to celebrate that we are all here and that we all bring something different," Sampat said. "We all have something unique to contribute to the Santa Clara community."

Contact Kaveri Gyanendra at kgyanendra@scu.edu or at (408) 554-1918.